'Jared has faded': Inside the 28 days of tumult that left Kushner badly diminished

By Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey
March 2, 2018

They were the ascendant young couples of the Trump White House: Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, and Rob Porter and Hope Hicks. They enjoyed rarefied access to the president and special privileges in the West Wing. Glamorous and well-connected, they had an air of power and invincibility. They even double-dated once. But an unlikely cascade of events - set in motion by paparazzi photos of Porter and Hicks published Feb. 1 in a British tabloid - crashed down on Kushner this week. The shortest month of the year delivered 28 days of tumult that many inside and outside the White House say could mark the fall of the House of Kushner. Once the prince of Trump's Washington, Kushner is now stripped of his access to the nation's deepest secrets, isolated and badly weakened inside the administration, under scrutiny for his mixing of business and government work and facing the possibility of grave legal peril in the Russia probe. Kushner's tensions with chief of staff John Kelly have spilled into public view, while other dormant rivalries have resurfaced. As Trump said a week ago, "Jared's done an outstanding job. I think he's been treated very unfairly. He's a high-quality person." But privately, the president has reiterated his long-standing concerns. He was angry that Kushner - and, by extension, daughter Ivanka - were in his view being dishonestly maligned. But he also mused this week that everything might be better for them if they simply gave up their government jobs and returned to New York, according to a White House official who has discussed it with him.

William M. Daley, a former White House chief of staff and Department of Commerce secretary under Democratic presidents, said, "A family member with no experience at anything other than real estate, no real profile other than a family-run business with a shady past, given incredibly complicated tasks, was a joke. "People elect a president knowing so much about them, good or bad, but no one knows Jared Kushner in the game he is playing," Daley continued. "The fact that he made so many blunders, starting with the back-channel talks with Russians, should have told one how in over his head he was." By this week, that once powerful foursome - Kushner and Ivanka Trump, Hicks and Porter - was fractured and in varying states of disarray. Porter left the administration last month and is no longer dating Hicks, the White House communications director. Hicks, meanwhile, abruptly announced Wednesday that she is giving up her post after six years of working for the Trump family in one capacity or another. In times of duress, Kushner has leaned on Josh Raffel, a deputy White House communications director, to help cope with unflattering coverage. But with crises mounting, Kushner will now need to look elsewhere. Raffel, too, announced this week that he is leaving.

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